Lachine Canal National Historic Site

A 14 Kilometre Canal Opened In 1825 To Bypass The Lachine Rapids; The Corridor Along It Became The Cradle Of Canadian Industrialisation, And Is Now A Parks Canada Site With A Continuous Cycle Path · Montreal, Quebec

The Lachine Rapids stopped river traffic dead, and from 1825 the LACHINE CANAL went around them - fourteen kilometres from the Old Port to Lake Saint-Louis, with locks. What happened next made Canada: factories crowded onto the banks to use the water power and the shipping, and THE CORRIDOR BECAME THE CRADLE OF CANADIAN INDUSTRIALISATION, with the working-class neighbourhoods of Saint-Henri, Little Burgundy and Pointe-Saint-Charles growing up around them. The St Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, the canal was obsolete within a decade, it closed in 1970 and the whole corridor rotted. Parks Canada reopened it for recreation in 2002. Today a CONTINUOUS CYCLE PATH runs its full length past converted grain silos and mills, small craft lock through in summer, and the old industrial buildings are lofts. It is the best bike ride in Montreal.

Old Port to Lachine, southwest Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

THE PATH AND THE BANKS ARE OPEN AT ALL TIMES, ALL YEAR, AND ARE FREE - this is a Parks Canada site with no admission for walking or cycling. WHAT IS SEASONAL IS THE WATER: THE NAVIGATION SEASON RUNS ROUGHLY MID-MAY TO EARLY OCTOBER, when the locks operate on published hours and pleasure craft, kayaks and pedal boats use the canal; outside it the canal is drained down in sections and the locks are closed. BOAT AND BICYCLE RENTALS OPERATE SEASONALLY at several points along the corridor. THE PATH IS PLOUGHED ONLY IN PARTS IN WINTER and is genuinely icy - it remains walkable but is not maintained end to end. Lionel-Groulx, Charlevoix and Atwater metro stations all reach the corridor, and Marche Atwater sits directly on the bank.

Lachine Canal National Historic Site on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos